#the earring was so necessary

[twst-mer]

playing with savanaclaw manga style

[skunkes]

talon doodle timelapseeee but i also colored it after ^_^

+ fulls ^_^

[tableofshrooms]

Here is some Kirk and Spock drawing practice I was doing, so that I can translate them better into my style

[micahmaeve]

you have been slowly converting me with all your icemav posting, and i recently rewatched top gun and i am s o l d. it has been consuming all of my thoughts! do you have any favorite fics??

omg, am I really?? welcome to the club!!

I’ve thrown myself head first into icemav recently so I can ABSOLUTELY rec some of my favorite fics I've read so far!!

When We Get Around to Talking About It by @compacflt is the pièce de résistance of icemav fiction I think, for me personally. It's masterfully written and nuanced and just so heartbreaking. the characterization feels so true to how these men would really be in real life and how they would deal with coming to terms with their feelings for each other and sexuality while being in the navy. and as if 90,424 words of beautiful prose wasn't enough of a gift, there is also a sequel/other stories called Debriefing (& Other Stories) which includes a more truncated version of the original but from mav's pov which is just 🤌🏻🤌🏻

Dreams of Impact by thecarlysutra is also very good. It involves a little supernatural flavor, which I enjoy, and revolves around how their lives could be different if they'd just made one single different choice.

come the same colors by susiecarter is a fav. It's a classic 'you got hurt and it's made me reckon with how I really feel about you, but I haven't figured out how to express that'. So basically it's amazing. this author also has a great catalogue of icemav, so it's really a jumping point to read all of her great work. A Shared Cup is another personal fav of mine from this author. it involves soul telepathic bonds. soooo good

a binary star by vannral is a really yummy piece of fanfic. the first line of the description is the perfect primer for how great the rest of the fic is: "Ice hasn’t ever given much thought to celestial things up in the sky but he knows that Maverick burns like one." like. c'monnnn

i'll ride in this life with you by sassenach082 is an ice and mav raise bradley after carol passes away fic, and it's full of sooo much lovely hurt/comfort that is so sweet it will rot your teeth. any fic with a plethora of baby bradley is going to be good for me

I saw beauty to the north by sortalively (tiisis) is a delayed injury fic set post TG:M. It has a lot of rooster and ice and mav reconciling in it which I'm a sucker for. and, if you like the exploration of rooster and mav's relationship (I'm a sucker for parental figure fics lets not unpack that) this author has some greaaaaaaaat fics on their page for that!

cloaked in the bruises of our failures by faerie_ground will rip your heart out. It takes the mission from TG:M and moves it to the 80s with our favorite class of '86 being trained to fly it, all while Mav and Ice are a few years post a messy 'break-up'. I should warn you that this one comes with a trigger warned from sexual assault from a person of authority to an employee, so if you aren't interested in that maybe skip this one. It is so beautiful though and treats the subject with the respect it deserves. slithered here from eden (just to sit outside your door) is another by this author that is very good and I am waiting patiently for an update

a higher fidelity by basedchamp is a classic slowburn with ice and mav developing their friendship before they realize their feelings for one another

no brighter diamond by qin_ling is a wonderful 'five times...' fic and it's so good. Everything by this author is fantastic so you should def check out their other stuff. as lions is about time travel. delish.

You're Gonna Be The One That Saves Me by an orphan_account is amazing. It's got mav struggling post hop 31 and Ice being there to offer emotional support and more if you know what I mean

'Til I Understand by Katastrophe (Karrington) is about Mav punching out of dark star and kind of fills in some blanks about what his loved ones went through while he was missing. Katastrophe is another author with a large catalogue to just go crazy in

PurpleArrowzandLeather has 153 tg fics on their page with a huge variety, some icemav, some flyboys of '86 (which I adore, I love fics showing their friendship). you can get lost in their page for a while haha. they also have their bookmarks public! so you can dig around in there, too

Sailor's Delight by saurora_borealis can be read as ice and mav or icemav and I think we both know which one I infer it as. Mal de Mer by them is like that, too

baby, baby, i'd get down on my knees for you by boasamishipper and simplecoffee is 'five times mav proposes and one time ice says yes' fic. It's sweet as candy

Is this arguably too long a response? yes. are all of these worth the read? also yes

I hope you enjoy!!

[yohankang]

it's my last day of work tomorrow... i'm happy and relieved but also sad and terrified

[arachnestwilight]

Playing around in what vaguely resembles the gen 4 artsyle, except it's all Shuu Satin Stitch because I produce Valkyrie and it's everyone's problem.

[conra]

This is my first time doing something for Pride Month , I don't know if l can do the rest. First member from DPA let's go.

Angela (she/her) is 100% demisexual, at least throughout the game she does not feel any affection for John and, accordingly, considers him a "typical man", but if a normal relationship develops between them, then Angela gets more trust and even feelings, at least without talking about them directly.(heterosexual /bisexual is still an open question for me, so I need your opinion👉👈).

[tennis-kittens]

These two 💀

[derpinette]

i hated airpods & phones with those big fugly cameras in the back when they were announced as a concept & i hate them even more each time i see that hideousness in person

[non-plutonian-druid]

hello all i have an absolute monster of a meta essay for you that I like to call “The Umbrella Academy is so close to saying something about the concept of nuclear families and if the writers are doing it on purpose its going to be beautiful”. Its almost 2k words.

For the record, since i think its relevant and greatly informs my thoughts, i am a nonpartnering aromantic person and i strongly believe that the idea that a family is a pair of romantic partners and their children needs to go. Thats uh. Bigger than the scope of this essay. But it does inform a lot of my thoughts on this particular theme in the umbrella academy so there you go.

First, some semantics: technically the only family member to actually get to the point of “nuclear family” is Allison, who then divorces her romantic partner. Only her and, technically, Diego, have kids. Most of the others have love interests but because of the beauty of being different people with different life experiences, their particular romances often do not fall specifically into the the box “nuclear family”, though some could eventually given time (and some may not ever). That being said, associated with the term “nuclear family” is a pattern, historically, of children growing up and finding a romantic partner and moving out into a single-family home, where they have children raised only and specifically by them and their romantic partner, and they thus grow apart from their siblings and parents. This is a pattern that is held, at least in America, as The Best pattern, and anyone who does not achieve it is failing in some way. And that pattern, of leaving behind the family you grew up in to make a home and a family with a romantic parter? That’s everywhere in TUA. I would argue that the tension between the siblings’ urges to follow it, and between their urge to reconnect with each other, is one of the main themes and a main source of tension through all of the show.

Pre season 1, most of the Hargreeves build their own lives after escaping from Reginald, but only Allison creates her own family. Then, in season 1, a few relevant things happen

One, Allison is separated from her daughter, and desperately wants to return to her. Returning to her daughter inherently and repeatedly means separating herself from her siblings and returning to a family unit that does not involve them. I am not arguing that this is a bad thing, or that Allison should not be with her daughter; I am pointing out that the family Allison has with Claire is separate from the one she has with her siblings (There is one notable exception to this, based on my memory; Allison asks Luther to join her on her flight to LA in the Day That Wasn’t, after they rekindle their romantic relationship).

Two, Viktor begins a relationship with Leonard, who deliberately isolates him from them, which does fit the pattern but is kinda unfair to use to serve my point lol

Three, Klaus meets Dave. Klaus has the power to return to 2019 at any point he wants, and could even bring Dave if he so chose, but remains in the 60s away from the modern day and his family with Dave until Dave tragically dies.

and Four: the world threatens to end and the umbrella academy tries, badly, to fix it by coming together once again. Allison is constantly torn between wanting to help save the world and wanting to be with her daughter, Viktor is manipulated away from his family (not that the hargreeves probably needed the help lol), and Klaus breaks away entirely to spend months away from them with a man he falls in love with. Bad things? Not necessarily, apart from Viktor’s shitty boyfriend being abusive. But the beginning of a pattern.

Season 2. The Hargreeves have all had months or years in Dallas, and many of them are beginning new lives with new families.

Allison, once again, is married. Viktor has a blossoming relationship with a woman he loves and is devoted to taking care of her son, who he loves too. Diego has acquired a love interest as well (Lila my beloved), Klaus is trying to prevent his past-future boyfriend from enlisting, and Luther is trying to figure himself out. Obviously a major tension in this season is between Five trying to round up his siblings, and his siblings’ prioritizing their lives in Dallas, which they’ve built with hard work and are just getting used to. This does not involve a tension between a nuclear (or nuclear-ish) family and their siblings for all of them, but it does for Allison especially, and Viktor, and to an extent, Klaus. An important thing to note here is that the siblings are not averse to reuniting, as they often were in season 1. They have been worried about each other! They have been looking! and yet even once they reconnect their little lives stay separate. They talk about it, but do not invite their siblings into their lives. They meet love interests offhand, but do not integrate. All of them, even when trying to reconnect, still have two separate lives that they have to choose between.

Season 3. Oh boy.

perhaps not “oh boy” for the reasons that you think. The reason its “oh boy” is because there are three parts to how i will talk about s3: The romantic interests-slash-nuclearish families, the way the hargreeves talk about their own family, and The Ending.

First, Allison again. Allison begins the season once again wishing desperately to find Claire, and mourning leaving Ray behind. She leaves almost immediately, and gets to LA only to find that Claire does not exist. Getting to a world where Claire exists, or Ray exists, or both, becomes her motivation for the rest of the season, pitting her against multiple of her family members. Fair! She is more worried about the family she has lost than the family that is right in front of her and fine, which is perfectly reasonable. And obviously, she is considerably more invested in her toddler’s well being than her adult brothers’. What I point out is that once again, her family with her siblings and the families she’s made are separate entities from each other, and this fact is forcing her to choose between them.

Second, Luther. Luther’s relationship with Sloane begins similarly enough to previous ones in the show- Luther is making a choice between a romantic partnership and his siblings, it causes tension, the romantic partnership and his siblings form two different units and never the twain shall meet. But. Then Sloane gets folded into the Hargreeves siblings- or rather the Umbrellas, since she’s a Hargreeves too lol. Sloane is... not a character, no offense, but I’m presuming that she is supposed to be integrated with the Hargreeves since that is the impression of the writers intentions that I get and for the sake of being nice to them I will pretend that they succeeded. Interesting! A romantic partnership that is integrated into their family, and not existing as a separate one adjacent to the rest of them! That has never happened before. Even Allison and Luther’s romance is not Part of the family formed by the rest of the siblings; it is, narratively, treated as something separate

Three, Diego. And Lila. Once again, a change of pace. Lila comes here for Diego only at first, but quickly is embroiled in the Plot and the Family. Lila has always been more integrated with the family than other love interests, if only because she has much more plot relevance than most of them, but even then her primary real interactions have been with the Handler, outside of the family entirely; or Diego, with the occasional exception of trying to murder Five. This season she is fully and completely part of the family, and has one on one, meaningful interactions with not only Diego but Allison, Five, and Klaus as well.

 Two love interests in one season that arent separate from the rest of the family, huh?

So what about the way the Hargreeves talk about their family this season?

Allison begins the season once again wishing desperately to find Claire, and leaves almost immediately. Viktor encourages her to leave, believing that Claire still exists and that finding her will help Allison. To do so, he encourages her to find her “real family”.

Later, Klaus goes on a roadtrip to find his biological mother. On the way, he commiserates with Five about their lives, and they both wonder if what they have could even be called a family.

Contrasting, there are multiple scenes on multiple occasions in season 3 alone where Allison, Five, Luther--  all of them-- declare their love for each other. They’re a family. No matter what.

Hm.

Now The Ending.

The Ending is one of the saddest parts of the show to me, and makes me desperately hope that The Umbrella Academy gets a season 4, because The Ending leaves the siblings utterly divided.

Luther is searching for Sloane.

Diego and LIla are presumably going to build a life together with their future child.

Allison is all the way in LA, living an idyllic dream where both Ray and Claire are alive and returned to her.

Even the remaining siblings, who do not have lives laid out for them, have walked away from one another to return to normal, nonpowered lives. If the story ends here, in the tension between the family you grow up with and the family you build with a partner, the siblings have prioritized their own lives, and the family they’ve spent three seasons trying to reconstruct falls apart under the weight of.... living a normal life.

What I want from the Umbrella Academy, what I hope we get if there is ever a fourth season, is the Hargreeves figuring out what family works for them. They have constantly been pulled between their siblings and their own lives, and have almost never allowed the two to mix. I find the story of the nuclear family, where all people are expected to find a partner and have children and for that and only that to make a normal life, to be depressing and isolating. I desparately want the Hargreeves, who have been trying so hard to reconnect, to find a better story for themselves. Every season so far has been building a stage for this storyline. Season 3 is literally ending with many of the Hargreeves getting idyllic little family units while walking away from each other, and if that doesn’t spell “we’re going to be Dealing With That” then I don’t know what does. They really could be telling a story that says “Leaving the family you grew up in behind doesn’t have to be the only answer”. It could be so good. But do i trust the writers to realize what they’re doing, or is their writing just littered with unexamined assumptions about how families are structured? I just don’t know.

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

im at the point where i immediately exit the page if i read the word "algorithm" or "AI" on a product specifications even when i genuinely dont know what it means.

i have no idea if "AI-enhanced calls" on headphones is like gibberish or actually a thing, and if it is a thing, is it bad?

i just automatically assume it is, and so i just went and bought the same pair of headphones i always do instead.

[wainswright]

music theory basics

but Not Really, this is specifically about trying to write out my confusion with his video, but to start:

"In music theory, a scale is any set of musical notes ordered by fundamental frequency or pitch." (wikipedia) A scale in common parlance is set between between two pitches that are an octave apart. A scale is an interval pattern of pitches between two pitches that are an octave apart.

Octave is a technical term based off of frequency: "Modern Western music uses a system called equal temperament (ET for short). The table below shows the frequency ratios for all intervals from unison up to an octave. (Unison is the musical name for the “interval” between two identical notes.)"

An octave is “the distance between one note and another note that’s double its frequency. For instance, the note A4 is the sound of a vibration at 440 Hz. The note A5 is the sound of a vibration at 880 Hz. Going in the other direction, the note A3 is the sound of a vibration at 220Hz.”

So: a scale is a set of pitches within an octave, and the smallest interval they are 'divided' by in western music is the semitone, or half step. Semitones:

Equal temperament divides the octave into twelve identical intervals (called half-steps or semitones). As a result, each semitone corresponds to a frequency ratio of  2(1/12)2(1/12). What this means is a note a semitone above 100Hz100𝐻𝑧 has a frequency of 2(1/12)∗100Hz2(1/12)∗100𝐻𝑧, or roughly 106Hz106𝐻𝑧. Note:  2(1/12)2(1/12) can also be written as 12√2212 and is roughly equal to 1.06. When you “stack” musical intervals, the frequency ratios multiply together– not add. A semitone is a factor of 12√2212 because going up twelve semitones in a row must be the same thing as going up one octave. If you multiply 12√2212 by itself twelve times in a row, you get two- exactly the right frequency ratio for the octave. Other intervals in ET are built by “stacking” semitones. Each semitone you go up (or down) increases (or decreases) the frequency by a factor of (12√2)(212). Go up (or down) certain number of semitones, the frequency increases (decreases) by a factor of (12√2)n(212)𝑛 where n𝑛 represents the number of semitones you go up.  You can combine these ideas into a single equation: f1=f2∗(12√2)n𝑓1=𝑓2∗(212)𝑛 Here’s the same equation written with fractional exponents (rather than root signs); f1=f2∗2(n/12)𝑓1=𝑓2∗2(𝑛/12) In the equation, f2𝑓2 represents the frequency you want to find and f1𝑓1 is the frequency of the note you start with. Use positive numbers for n𝑛 if the frequency you want to find is higher than the frequency you are given. Use negative numbers if you are going down in pitch. Charts with note names and corresponding frequencies are freely available on the web- search on “note name frequency chart” to see a selection. Almost all of these charts are generated using the equation above, using the frequency 440 Hz for the note A4 as the starting point. (This standard note is often called A440).

Equal temperament is the most common system for musical intervals but it is not the only one. Early temperament systems based musical intervals frequency ratios based on whole numbers. Pythagorean temperament defines a perfect fifth as a frequency ratio of 3:2 and defines all other notes in terms of the perfect fifth. Just temperament defines all intervals in terms of fractions of whole numbers. The advantage of these older temperaments is that musically important intervals (like perfect fifths and major thirds) are perfectly in tune with the overtones wind and string instruments produce. The drawback is that non-ET systems do not handle key signatures changes well. In non-ET systems, musical notes produced in one key signature (say D major) do not produce the same musical intervals when music of a different key signature (say C major) is played.

Even just hearing the above causes every musician to start trying to catalogue how inadequate ET is to record various types of music.

However, in practice it's impossible to tune off of ET/matching a hertz anyway, people modify scales and tuning on their instruments to frequencies to match slightly different scales that in the end don't exactly line up with this kind of measurement. This isn't a bug, but an intended feature. More styles of measurement of scales are commonly explained when explaining these basics, including microtones, which are defined as quarter-steps, they are supposed to be half of semitones. In practice, imo, this is negligible to hear, but exists.

However- this does mean on most scales within an octave, there are twelve possible intervals called semitones/half-steps. The piano is tuned for exactly this. Two adjacent keys on a piano are a half-step apart. (This is what chromatic scale means: a scale where you play all 12 half steps within an octave.) (The definition of a diatonic scale is currently: a pattern of intervals between seven notes of most modern scales (not only including western history) and the seven modes based off these intervals.) (There are multiple non-diatonic variations of major and minor scales that come off from a mode, that is not uncommon or special.)

A mode is the pattern of half and whole steps that can begin/use as a tonic any note of a root scale, without shifting the intervals between them. If the interval is shifted (common,) then it is a variation of that mode (common names: harmonic and melodic), and no longer the same type of scale as the root "scale." (Any scale can have modes, depending on number of pitch and the pattern of pitch. A chromatic scale would technically have 12 modes, but it would be identical no matter where you start so what's the point. )

Any sound you hear in most music (including traditional music not only from western tradition) works using a chromatic scale. Not every music scale in various music is always going to specifically going to match a diatonic scale (even including accidentals), but that's true of a lot of music considered "western", not just traditional music of any given culture. All music exists using a "scale" because that's literally just what it means- if it's along an interval pattern except for an odd note out that note is an "accidental" to a scale and gets a special marking like # or b in the music to denote how it sounds outside the scale marked at the beginning of the sheet music. Music can change key/scale at any time.

Nowadays most scales use seven notes/pitches in an octave, in an pattern of intervals (whole steps and half steps) called the diatonic scale. (Skipping over why, tbh it's probably not racism, applies to a lot of music.) Two half-steps together form the interval of a whole step. The pattern of the major and minor scale are formed by a variety of half and whole steps. G major scale is a diatonic scale, G ionian mode of G major scale (tonic and root are the same note G, which is the first degree.) G minor scale is a diatonic scale, G aeolian mode (natural minor scale) of the 'parent' B major scale. (tonic is B, root is G)

Modes of a major/diatonic scale:

(from the tonic starting from which root degree degree first to seventh) Ionian - Dorian - Phrygian - Lydian - Mixolydian - Aeolian - Locrian

But to skip forward a lot, say you make modes of any of these scales in themselves and don't stick to the interval pattern of the diatonic scale (common.) Then it is no longer diatonic, and starts getting labelled based off the shifted intervals within the scale.

Modes of a minor scale (at random example) (actually i should check this later):

Melodic Minor - Dorian b2 - Lydian Augmented - Lydian Dominant - Mixolydian b6 - Locrian Natural - Altered Dominant

There's a lot of variation you can introduce through modes based off of different intervals between pitches in a scale. It makes sense to me there are a lot of unique modes used for music I'm not familiar with. However: it is simply a different claim to say that there are such commonly used quarter steps/microtones that suddenly make talking about music impossible, that's just saying words man.

You'd easily just make a scale that includes a quarter step with all the annoying extra notes that implies. I googled iranians modes very briefly.

There doesn't seem to be overwhelming shower of information on some system of intervals that specifically uses a scale with missing microtones but iranian modes do have scales that tune a few notes a microtone flatter on a normal chromatic scale- these specific notes a quarter-step flat are labelled 'koron' (which implies to me there aren't a huge amount of microtones to practically use in these scales, it's related to having a style where a note is bent down slightly instead and maybe it is a proper novel harmony I'd love to learn about) but it is true foreign traditional modes are not studied in the lens of introductory music theory, but he didn't develop his argument at all so I'm not sure what he's saying, because he's not sure what he's saying past that. (I'm filtering his argument to make it as if he would if he was more knowledgeable.)

[cacturne]

my toxic arknights opinion is that nearl alter changed nearls design for the worse by making her base look way more generic so now when she is drawn even slightly different like in ambience synesthesia 2024 she is barely recognizable

[everyryuujisuguro]

[kwangyanese]

literally everything going wrong with kpop rn can be traced back to either bts or hybe and to the cult-like mentality they created because their fans are SO used to mediocrity that they think that's the best thing ever when there's even nugu groups who do better. so fucked up that we live in a reality where bts somehow is such a well known group when they bring very little to the table lol. for example the poor girls from new jeans have to deal with that freak mhj and with a majority pedophilic male fanbase while serving below average vocals and popularizing "easy-listening" whisper singing kpop which then makes other vocally weak idols hop onto the trend that'll die off in a few years when people start demanding actual vocalists again. le ssera has some really good well-produced songs and allegedly great vocalists and i think that's the main reason why their horrible encores get so infamous. singing has kinda lost priority as we get more and more idols who are pretty faces who can dance bc 1) ppl forgive and forget 2) ppl don't care. and worst of all that guy's tiktok is becoming a pretty common opinion for new kpop fans lol

[aqent8]

they need to invent a place u go to where they actually fix you up and reset your issues so if you walk back out youre the healthiest u could be at that moment